Skydive Chicago, Summerfest 2015. Last day, last jump. Something I'd always worried about finally happened. I had to cut away over a giant cornfield. With only hours of daylight left, I knew the chances of finding my main were slim. Those cornfields are notorious for claiming canopies every summer. Yet somehow, I beat the odds. I found my canopy eight days later while sitting in a chair some 2,000 miles away. This was the result of perseverance, technology, helpful friends and some luck.
Here's how we did it and a loose set of guidelines for jumpers in similar situations: more »

Like many of you, I fell into skydiving by chance and immediately fell in love. At the time of my accident, I had been in the sport six months and had a little more than 100 jumps. After 75 uneventful and comfortable landings on my docile, aging canopy, I considered moving to a newer canopy with better wind penetration and more horizontal glide but with the same wing loading (less than 1:1). I consulted AFF instructors, coaches and colleagues before making the move, and I understood that while my new canopy was relatively docile, it was less forgiving. I was comfortable with the change. Six jumps later, I had a hard landing and broke my back. As is often the case, the accident was the confluence of preventable events that were in my control. more »

On February 6, 1972, I took off in a Skyvan from Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport and headed about 40 minutes north to Forest Lake. It was jump number 439 and different from all the rest. I was a young editor on assignment for Popular Science magazine to write a story about making a training jump with the Minnesota Para-Rescue Team. This was a unique group of volunteer emergency medical technicians, all of whom were active skydivers. more »

5:30 a.m.
We were in Malaysia, in an A-Star helicopter at 6,000 feet during our third day of filming a skydiving sequence for an Indian movie called “Don.” In the sequence, stunt doubles wearing hidden parachutes—Omar Alhegelan as the good guy and Greg Gasson as the bad guy–fight over a single parachute system. The good guy wins, of course, and drifts to earth holding onto the parachute’s leg straps with one hand. more »

Skydiving is a sport like any other, and there are plenty of mistakes to make when playing the game. Baseball players strike out. Football players fumble. Big-way formation skydivers go low. When someone goes low, the jump is usually over. Of all the mistakes a jumper can make, going low is the one that is most talked about, laughed about (or cried over) and feared by large-formation skydivers. more »

It was a beautiful day with clear skies past the ocean out to the horizon. The sound of my parachute swooping down and then gliding along the ground was incredibly exciting. I clearly remember the jump: flaring 350 feet above the ground, diving down on my double fronts, the riser pressure on my hands as I turned, rounding out and then immediately hitting the ground. Next, the sounds of helicopter blades against the air as I was put on a life flight to the hospital. more »

While visiting my friend, Ivan Balarin, D-3442, one evening this year, he showed me a poem that had been written for him for his birthday while he was in the hospital recovering from a broken leg. more »

In September of 1990, I was going through the training required to transition from using a ripcord to a pilot chute for deployment. I wasn’t familiar with how to stow the pilot chute into the pouch, so one of the up-jumpers packed it for me. I remember being a little nervous about the whole thing, so the owner of the DZ kept telling me not to worry and just flick the pilot chute out. more »

I met Bryan in Florida on my very first day skydiving. Bryan had driven down from New York City to practice wingsuiting. His girlfriend, Katherine, came with him to go through the AFF program and was in my first-jump course. All through ground school and training that day, my nervousness rose. I rode to altitude quaking. When I landed, I felt such an incredible elation. Afterward, drinking a beer with Katherine and Bryan, I tried to describe what I had felt. I remember Bryan, with a huge smile on his face, listening knowingly. more »